Trinidad‘s famous North Coast Road begins at a junction with Saddle Road, the main north-bound route out of Port of Spain, and is marked by two four-metre high stone pillars. As its name suggests, it then runs along the coast for about 25 kilometres until it comes to an abrupt end at Three Pools. It promises much.
The Rough Guide describes it as ‘one of the Caribbean’s most spectacular drives’. It goes on, ‘The North Coast Road offers one of Trinidad’s most dramatic drives, teetering along 300m-high cliffs and tunnelling past precipices of rainforest with occasional views of faraway peaks. Bois cano trees drop claw-like leaves onto the tarmac and mineral springs pour down into roadside gullies; the water is chilled, delicious and safe to drink. Despite its spiralling course, this is also one of the island’s smoothest roads, built by the US Army in 1944 as a recompense for their use of the Chaguaramas peninsula, which deprived residents of sea bathing at Macqueripe and other bays; it’s still sometimes called the “American Road”.’
My Rough Guide was published in August 2015. All I can say is that a lot must have changed in the last couple of years!
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Driving the North Coast Road
The road surface is far from smooth. There are numerous potholes, many of them a metre or more across, and many areas where the tarmac has disintegrated completely. As well as negotiating the hairpin bends built into the road itself, you also have to navigate around the holes and the places where the road just doesn’t exist, either because it has fallen off the edge of the cliff into the sea, or because it’s covered by rocks resulting from landslides. In many places, what’s left of the road isn’t wide enough for two cars to pass, making encounters with speeding oncoming traffic interesting, to say the least. It all makes for a hair-raising drive!
As for the ‘spectacular panoramas’ and ‘gorgeous coastal prospects’ described in my guidebook, these were impossible to see from the road due to the abundance of rain forest. All we could see was dense foliage, often arching over the road and enclosing us in a lush green tunnel.
La Vache Scenic Area
After driving gingerly past a massive, recent landslide which had blocked most of the road (and which still appeared to be happening!), we came to La Vache Scenic Area, a layby with fruit stalls and refreshment huts (all closed because we were too early!) from where we could get our first clear views of Trinidad’s north coast. It certainly is beautiful, though many of the beaches along here are virtually inaccessible, located as they are at the bottom of sheer, tree-covered cliffs. We took some photos and joked with the construction workers who’d just arrived to clear the landslide. We then drove on to Maracas Bay, billed as ‘the most beautiful and popular beach on the island’.
Maracas Bay
The charm of Maracas Bay was a little difficult to appreciate at first, as the whole place appeared to be a giant building site. There was a lot of construction work going on behind the beach. Nevertheless, we parked up and went to explore. We walked to one end of the bay where the local fishermen were repairing their nets whilst enjoying a morning beer. They were happy to chat to us about their catch. We then retraced our steps and walked along the beach to the other end of the bay. Screened from the building work by a row of palm trees and a couple of bars and restaurants, the beach seemed more attractive than our first impressions had led us to believe. Indeed, we returned a couple of times during our two-week stay in Trinidad and enjoyed lazy days on the beach and meals at Asha’s Beach Bar.
Las Cuevas Beach
On this first visit, however, we drove on, stopping next at Las Cuevas Beach. According to our Rough Guide, there are a couple of other bays and beaches between Maracas and Las Cuevas, but, as is often the case in Trinidad, there were no signs and so we didn’t see them! Las Cuevas is the north coast’s longest beach. It is clean, unspoiled, and more shaded than Maracas if you prefer to stay out of the sun.
Blanchisseuse
From Las Cuevas, we drove on to Blanchisseuse and beyond until the road ran out at a disused bridge. From here, the next tarmac is 30km to the east at Matelot. It’s possible to hike along an old donkey trail, but this wasn’t on our agenda for the day, so we returned to the car and retraced our route.
Blanchisseuse had been recommended as a destination by our Airbnb host, so we planned to eat there at a restaurant featured in our guidebook. We found the said eating house, but it was closed. A helpful passerby told us that there was nowhere to get food locally! Blanchisseuse itself was rather disappointing. There are some lovely properties along the coast which clearly afford their owners gorgeous sea views, but there’s nothing to detain the visitor. Later, our Trinidadian friend told us that there are beaches at Blanchisseuse which are accessed via dirt tracks between some of these houses. We didn’t find them!
Instead, we returned to Maracas Bay and ate at Uncle Sam’s before heading back to our lodgings.
Read more about Trinidad
Book a Tour!
If you are not self-driving, the best way to get to know Trinidad is to book a tour and see the island through the eyes of a local. You can find a list of tours (including prices and reviews) here at GetYourGuide. We always use GetYourGuide to find interesting things to do whenever we visit a new destination. They’re easy to use and book with. We’ve had some amazing experiences with them!
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